ON THE CAUSE OF SIN UNIVERSALLY

Though sin can be committed by none except by a rational creature, and, therefore, ceases to be sin by this very circumstance if the cause of it be ascribed to God; yet it seems possible, by four arguments, to fasten this charge on our divines. "It follows from their doctrine that God is the author of sin." 2. First reason. -- Because they teach that, "without foresight of sin, God absolutely determined to declare his own glory through punitive justice and mercy, in the salvation of some men and in the damnation of others." Or, as others of them assert, "God resolved to illustrate his own glory by the demonstration of saving grace, wisdom, wrath, ability, and most free power, in the salvation of some particular men, and in the eternal damnation of others; which neither can be done, nor has been done, without the entrance of sin into the world." 3. Second reason. -- Because they teach "that, in order to attain to that chief and supreme end, God ordained that man should sin and become corrupt, by which thing God might open a way to himself for the execution of this decree." 4. Third reason. -- Because they teach "that God has either denied to man, or has withdrawn from man, before he sinned, grace necessary and sufficient to avoid sin;" which is equivalent to this -- as if God had imposed a law on man which was simply impossible to be performed or observed by his very nature. 5. Fourth reason. -- Because they attribute to God some acts, partly external, partly mediate, and partly immediate, which, being once laid down, man was not able to do otherwise than commit sin by necessity of a consequent and antecedent to the thing itself, which entirely takes away all liberty; yet without this liberty a man cannot be considered, or reckoned, as being guilty of the commission of sin. 6. A Fifth reason. -- Testimonies of the same description may be added in which our divines assert, in express words, that "the reprobate cannot escape the necessity of sinning, especially since this kind of necessity is injected through the appointment of God." (Calvin's Institutes, Lib. 2, 23.)